The Book of Mandalas - Evelyn Illustrations

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by Evelyn Gyuris
Published by Self Published Style: cardstock, single page illustrations
Format: Card cover

I received this product for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the product or the content of my review.

Table of Contents

A collection of hand drawn mandalas and zentangle inspired art beautifully bound and presented for hours of coloring enjoyment.

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The Book of Mandalas – Evelyn Illustrations Video Review

I hope you enjoyed the video review of The Book of Mandalas – Adult Coloring Book by Evelyn Gyuris above.

The Book of Mandalas Coloring Book Review

When I was browsing for coloring books one day I came across the work of a talented Hungarian artist, Evelyn Gyuris. At that time, she had self published her first coloring book called Dream Woods. I immediately bought it, actually I bought two 🙂 I was really impressed with the way that the book had been created. At that time, I had not seen a coloring book that was bound with ribbon and tied in bows. I love something different so I was very intrigued 🙂 When the books arrived, I was impressed again by the presentation and the beautiful art work within them (they were also outstandingly packaged). Evelyn has a lovely style of art, she uses a lot of black in her art and it really pops when you add color to it.

When Evelyn offered to send me her latest coloring books I jumped at the chance because I love her art work and find it very relaxing to color.

Cover & Layout

The cover of the Book of Mandalas features a lion with zentangle style art work and a small corner of a mandala. It accurately describes the coloring pages that you will find inside. The cover has a gradient metallic background of shades of peach to green with the line art as the focal point. The front and back cover is 250 gsm cardstock which is good quality, heavy paper. You could color in the lion line art on the cover 🙂 and frame it. The paper is metallic and you will notice that when you move it slightly it has a metallic sheen to it.

On the back cover you will find 30 thumbnail images of the art work inside. There are also a few additional decorative elements on the back cover that you could color, if you wished.

Ribbons threaded through the pages of the book and tied up in bows really provides a personal touch to this book. It also makes it easy to remove pictures from the book to color and frame.

The book measures 29.5cm x 21cm (approximately A4 sized).

Ancillary Pages

On the inside cover there is a short introduction from the artist together with partial elements of art to color or practice your color palette on.

Layout

Illustrations are presented on a single page. The paper quality is very good. It is described as technical drawing paper with a weight of 180 gsm. The drawings have been orientated in both portrait and landscape style. The bulk of the images avoid the area that has been hole punched to thread the ribbon through. However, the full page illustrations, and two or three others are affected by a hole punch, either near or through the drawing.

Illustrations

Evelyn has a very distinct artistic style. In this selection of 30 coloring pages she has provided a variety of images. You will find a number of images of animals including a lion, bird, elephant, peacock and two butterflies. You will also find some Indian inspired art as well a couple of lovely dreamcatchers. This art work comprises an outline that is filled with pattern in a zentangle type style. Some of the patterns are very intricate and detailed with a lot of small spaces to color. Other images have a larger spaces that will suit colorists that are visually impaired or have health obstacles that make coloring tight spaces uncomfortable.

One of the things I love about Evelyn’s work is the strong, black lines that she uses. This tends to give her work a three dimensional quality when colored. The heavy and in some cases solid black provides amazing contrast and definition once color is added. The other reason that I like the strong, black lines is that it is very easy to see visually to color in.

One of the things that I really enjoy coloring are mandalas. I find them very relaxing. I also find that it very enjoyable. Since starting this blog I haven’t had as much time to color as I would like to have. As a colorist, I’m on my training wheels, and often find some illustrations overwhelming – thinking about light source, shading, blending, techniques, fur, hair and the like can sometimes stress me rather than calm me. Coloring mandalas and kaleidoscopes eliminates that stress for me, because you can color them anyway you please.

Evelyn has included approximately 16 images in her coloring book that I would describe as mandalas or kaleidescopes. There is a great deal of variety for the colorist to choose from in this selection to color. There are mandalas with larger spaces and others with more tightly packed details. There are also a couple of pages where you will find a trio of partial mandalas which provides a very interesting look.

There are three illustrations within the book that fill the whole page with art work and would look fabulous framed. The balance of images have an amount of white space around them. If you enjoy coloring backgrounds you have enough room to have some fun there.

Art by Evelyn Gyuris colored by Lea @ColoringQueen.net

As most readers know, my sight is not what it was a few years ago 🙁 Rather than go and find my glasses to color my picture from the book I used a color wash with my Tombow markers. I often find that using a color wash is a great way of adding color without worrying about small spaces. This was the first time I had used my Tombows on a picture. I often use Inktense pencils as well for a color wash.

The lovely thing about this book is the ease at which you can remove the images to color. It is just a matter of untying the lovely bows and coloring away. As the illustrations are printed on good quality paper they can withstand most mediums on them. I was getting used to my Tombows when I colored the picture above, and overworked the paper but there was no evidence of any pilling on the paper. There was some shadowing on the back of the paper as is the usual way.

Completed pages from this book would look lovely framed and given as gifts.